The United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has issued an interim final rule on the use of e-prescriptions of controlled substances, according to a Government Health IT article.

The new ruling requires that a doctor or pharmacist creating the prescription must authenticate their identity via two factors: a biometric factor, a knowledge factor such as a password or a token.

While the DEA did not specify what, if any, specific mode of biometrics would be required under the e-prescription rule, they did acknowledge that they would be working with the National Institute for Standards and Technology to work on establishing specific standards for the systems to be used in this program. The rule will go into effect following the 60-day comment period that begins on March 31.